Isolation Exercises or Basic Workouts - Which One Builds Bigger Muscles?

Which is the best way to build muscle? To understand this it is important to look at the various types of muscle training exercises. The most common way to classify weight and resistant training is in terms of how each exercise trains the body and what and how many muscle groups are used in an activity. There are two groups of training, isolation exercises and compound/basic exercises.

Compound/ Basic exercises

A compound exercise is termed as basic exercises because they tend to use muscle groups together as in normal movement. They simulate real-life activities using a wide variety of movements through a wide range of motion. These multi-joint movements primarily affect one group of muscles but activate several secondary muscle groups. A perfect example of a basic exercise is squats which engage the quads primarily while still working on most of lower body muscle groups such as hamstrings, the gluteus, the calves and lower back muscle groups. The other common compound workout exercises include deadlifts, barbell, dumbbell, or machine rows, dips, pull-ups, lat pull-downs or chin-ups, and bench press exercises.

Compound exercises are generally recommended to people who want to get the most out of their training program, as these exercises utilize a lot of muscles at one. Other advantages of using basic exercises include

More calories are burned at one training session

• Simulates real life movements and improves coordination and balance
• Improves joint movement and stability of muscle across a joint which help reduce the risk of injury during sports
• Since the exercise involves more than one group of muscles, it provides cardiovascular benefits.
• Compound exercise is the best way to build muscle as you are able to carry more load hence muscle increase. The muscles are also able to carry the wait for longer with less fatigue.

Isolation exercises

Isolation exercises are targeted and work on one muscle group and one joint at a time. These exercises are aimed at working out one muscle at a time all through the groups till the whole body is covered. Examples of isolation exercises include bicep curl, quadriceps extension, triceps kickbacks, lateral raises, front raises, rope pull-downs, hamstring curls, or calf raises.

Isolation exercises are often used in physical therapy to correct a specific muscle or joint weakness and imbalance may be due to injury or disease. Isolation of one muscle group is aimed at leveling it functions with the equivalent body muscles. This is important to avoid biochemical imbalance in the specific muscle.

For the beginners, compound exercises are the best way to build muscle fast across the body but if you want to build a specific muscle such as biceps ahead of the summer beach parties, isolation exercise can work the muscle groups to the maximum. Overall the compound exercises are superior compared to isolated exercises because, Higher number of muscle fibers are stimulated and worked Reduced time in the gym to work out and gain muscle because of the many muscle groups worked at a time There is reduced risk to over-training which may injury your muscle fibers.